


Keep It

by Soulmonella, swxssxrmy



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Buckle up kids we're writing about post TFTBL, Cancelled fic, Gen, Post-Tales From The Borderlands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:52:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8733763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulmonella/pseuds/Soulmonella, https://archiveofourown.org/users/swxssxrmy/pseuds/swxssxrmy
Summary: Time has passed since what happened on Pandora with Rhys and his friends. With the Vault key fiasco, Hyperion, and Handsome Jack behind him, Rhys has returned to ATLAS to continue his work. However, with the stress of work, increasing nightmares, and new information about the Vault of the Traveller, things aren’t exactly coming together in the way that he imagined. Combine that with a series of strange events, and you get a recipe for disaster.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This all started over a conversation on Kik. Woah. ALSO it is important to note that this is Rhys and I's first fic and we'd appreciate any pointers. We already have a couple of chapters drafted and nearing the editing process, and we plan to post them at relatively regular intervals.

Rhys’s office at the recently fully remodeled ATLAS facility at Old Haven is large, but not exactly as big and completely oversized as Handsome Jack’s office was back on Helios. He keeps it simple, with nothing more than the usual desk with his chair behind it and two more chairs placed in front of it. Currently, the only illumination comes from the lit screen on his desk, which cast dim light on the few plants he had taken directly from the bio-dome facility. He doesn’t really bother keeping his office lights on at this time of night. Despite the darkness, the rebuilt city of Old Haven—now dubbed New Old Haven—casts a soft light that barely makes it through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. The city is more of a town, really. It’s mostly home to those who work at the ATLAS facility—many of them being ex-Hyperion workers—since it’s close enough to eliminate the possibility of being robbed and or killed by bandits on the way to work.  


On Rhys’s desk sit a few simple things: a holo-screen computer, a keyboard, and a stack of papers regarding things that he really wishes he doesn’t have to deal with. Aside from those essentials, the left side of his desk also has two small cubic cases arranged near the back corner; one case contains his old ECHO implant, the other holds a small glowing crystal of Eridium. Beside the two cases stands a small Hyperion brand figure of a loader bot. Sitting at the desk, Rhys has long since stopped typing away at his computer and is now leaning on his left hand, tapping his fingers against the desk, deep in thought and incredibly tired.  
He doesn’t look up as the door to his office slides open and his assistant steps in. She’s dressed in the generic ATLAS uniform—a pressed black button-up shirt with the ATLAS logo adorning the left side, pressed black slacks, and short black heels. She has dark skin, warm brown eyes, and black hair hanging in natural curls around her chubby face. She approaches his desk with a gentle smile and a short stack of papers. She speaks softly as she moves closer, “Mr. Rhys? Are you awake?”  
Rhys looks up, “Yeah… Uh, yes. Yes, Corinne I’m awake. I didn’t mean to worry you or anything, I’m just…” his voice trails off a bit as he looks around his office, “thinking.” His eyes snap back to meet hers.  


Corinne nods and holds up the stack of papers. “I have a few documents for you to look over when you have time. It’s getting late, though.” Her brows furrow, worry creasing her forehead.  


He shakes his head. “No, it’s fine… Here, just set them on my desk I’ll take a look in a minute.”  
Corrine keeps the papers in her hands, hesitant to give them to her boss. “Are you sure…? It’s pretty late, and none of them are marked urgent. I can bring them to you tomorrow. You stay up late enough as it is.”  


He smiles gently. “I appreciate the concern, Corinne, but really. I’m fine. …But if you could bring me a coffee, that would be nice. Black, please.”  


She sets the papers on his desk. “If you insist… I’ll be back with that.”  


He takes the papers into his hands and flips through them. “Thank you, I’ll go through these before I call it a night.” He listens to Corinne leave the room, heels clacking against the hardwood. He begins reading through the first document, though he quickly loses focus. “I need to quit doing this…” Rhys sets the papers back down and leans forward on his desk, rubbing at his eyes. He sits up at the sound of his office door opening.  


Corrine approaches his desk again. “Here’s your coffee sir. Do you need anything else? I was planning on calling it a night, if that’s alright by you.” She hands him the cardboard cup, which he takes gladly.  


“Oh, right… Yeah, it’s late. You go ahead and go home, I’ll leave in a little bit.” Rhys gives her another smile and bids her a goodnight. He watches the door slide shut behind her as she leaves. He leans back into the light coming from the window to read over the papers, downing his coffee once it has cooled off enough, before clipping the forms together and putting them back in the folder.  


Rhys sets the folder down onto his desk and quickly goes through his computer, making sure everything important is saved before shutting it off for the night. He organizes what’s left on his desk before getting up out of his chair, locking up his office, and heading down the elevator to walk home.  


His house wasn’t too far from the facility, with the facility itself making up a large portion of New Old Haven. The old homes surrounding said facility had been redesigned, appearing much more modern than the dilapidated buildings occupying the space prior to the reformation of ATLAS. He heads up the path along the back of the facility up to his house, a relatively nice two-story building on a cliff section that overlooked pretty much all of the part of the town that was in front of the ATLAS building. He slides his key into the lock and walks inside, taking a deep breath and exhaling in a whistled tune before shutting the door behind him.  


His house, admittedly, wasn’t exactly the cleanest nowadays. Though the original design was more modern in its looks, the place had long since been covered in papers, blueprints, and notebooks. Rhys sets his messenger bag on the floor by the entryway before heading upstairs to his room, removing his mechanical arm, showering, and getting comfortable in bed.  
That night, as Rhys slept, he slipped into another dream. He rarely ever had a peaceful night’s sleep anymore. Flashes and memories of the events prior flooded his mind: Memories of his friends, memories of Helios, and memories of Jack rushed through his dreams as he slept. Suddenly, laughter echoed through his mind. Some nights the laughter was his voice, some nights it was a distant voice that he couldn’t quite make out, but every night, without fail, he would find himself standing on a cliff after the laughter subsided, watching New Old Haven go up in flames before he would shoot up out of bed.  


Now incredibly awake and breathing heavily, Rhys takes a moment to remember his surroundings before laying back down and staring at the ceiling. He tries his best to calm his trembling limbs with slow, practiced breaths. This is nothing new, and this definitely isn’t anything he can’t handle. The dark morphs around him, forming images out of nothing on his ceiling. He sighs and rubs at his eyes before sitting up again, firmly planting his feet on his bedroom floor, toes curling into the soft rug beside his bed before moving to the bathroom, swaying slightly on his still shaky legs.  


He flicks on the light and leans against the counter, the mirror in front of him reflecting tired eyes and mussed hair. He turns the knob on the tap, splashing cold water on his face to wake him further. He isn’t going back to sleep, so he figures he might as well get ready for his inevitably long day. He pats his face dry with a nearby hand towel before returning to his room to retrieve clothes for a shower. Though he had showered only a few hours before, he woke up in sweats, which he deems an acceptable excuse to shower again. Rhys turns on the shower; instead of actually showering, however, he more or less just stands there with conditioner in his hair, staring at the shower wall for a good thirty minutes or so. Eventually, he rinses his hair out and finishes up, turning off the water and wrapping a towel around his waist, moving into the bedroom to retrieve his arm. He attaches it swiftly before going back and getting dressed for the day.  


Rhys begins making his way down to the kitchen, being extra careful to not trip and take a nosedive down the stairs in the dim lighting. He makes it into the kitchen with no incidents and heads over to the mini-bar, pulling open a drawer lined with several different types of instant coffee cups. He grabs a dark roast and sticks it into the coffee maker, placing his rainbow mug with the words “Nobody knows I’m gay” in large white letters on the plate before going over to the entryway and pulling a couple folders full of documents out of his messenger bag. He tosses the folders down onto the dining table by his laptop, which stays nearly in the same spot, as he only ever gets work done at home in the early mornings. He goes over to grab his coffee before sitting down to get some work done.


	2. Ain't No Rest For The Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time has passed since what happened on Pandora with Rhys and his friends. With the Vault key fiasco, Hyperion, and Handsome Jack behind him, Rhys has returned to ATLAS to continue his work. However, with the stress of work, increasing nightmares, and new information about the Vault of the Traveller, things aren’t exactly coming together in the way that he imagined. Combine that with a series of strange events, and you get a recipe for disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, I could have posted this chapter at a decent time, but I was too excited to post it. Originally, this was chapter one AND chapter two, but we ended up just combining them.
> 
> -soulmonella

Nestled in the Hyperion bandit camp, Rhys, Vaughn, Sasha, Fiona, and Loader Bot stood around a table inside the designated ‘Interrogation Room.’ Rhys and Fiona were standing together on one side, while Vaughn, Sasha, and Loader Bot were standing on the other. The whole scenario looked reminiscent of some old good-cop-bad-cop movie interrogation scene. Vaughn looked visibly upset, but that was to be expected, considering it was Vaughn. Sasha had her arms crossed in front of her chest, and Loader Bot… Well, it wasn’t clear what he was feeling. The guy didn’t have a face.  


Rhys sighed, a look of slight annoyance written across his face. “Vaughn, we were only gone for a day. What are you so concerned about?”  


Fiona butted in before Vaughn could retort, “I mean, it could have been worse? it could have been like... Half a year, or a year, even.”  


“That’s just the problem though bro, you were gone for _two months_. Two months!” Vaughn replied, bewildered.  


Sasha joined in, though less… tense than Vaughn, “Two months of no one knowing where the hell you two went!”  


Rhys set both hands down on the table and looked to Vaughn. “Wait, wait, wait… No, that’s not right, I’m pretty sure I’d know if we were gone for two entire months.” His face changed from annoyance to genuine curiosity as he considered what Vaughn said. Why would his best friend lie to him, after all?  


“We were gone for a day tops. I mean unless time works differently in the vault than it does here?” Fiona shrugged.  


Sasha chimed in, “Could be the case, we don’t really know much about the vaults in general, so who’s to say?”  


Vaughn pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a very exasperated sigh. “Even if that is the case, you were still gone for two whole months! I had to run your company with no explanation for your employees! It was a mad house! And we still have no explanation of what even happened, you’re just magically back again!”  


Rhys stood up straight and crossed one arm over the other, hips cocked to the right. He gestured to Vaughn with his non-mechanical hand. “Thank you for that Vaughn. And I can’t exactly explain what happened—I really have no idea—but I can tell you what we found.”  


Sasha rolled her eyes. “Well get on with it, we’ve had more than enough dramatics because of you for months now.”  


Rhys’s face lit up as he revealed to them the contents of the vault, or rather, the contents the vault had taken them to. “Well kiddos, we’re in for some big business; Fiona and I found an _Eridium mine_. An entire cave just full of the stuff! And of course, Vaughn, it’s yours.”  


Vaughn practically jumped, “Wait, WHAT?!”  


Sasha jumped in, practically screaming at Rhys before Vaughn could say anything else, slamming her hands down onto the table. “Yeah, seriously, what?! He gets everything?! How is that fair?” The look in her eyes was nothing short of pure frustration and anger.  


Rhys threw his hands up into the air in a sort of over exaggerated shrug. “That’s an excellent question, Sasha. It’s not! But do you have any experience with Eridium? Or finances, for that matter?”  


Fiona shot Rhys a look of surprise but also annoyance. “Well, you don’t have to be an ass about it, Rhys.” She turned to look at her sister. “But really, Sash, we don’t have the experience Vaughn or Rhys do.”  


“But shouldn’t we at least get something? I mean, you found it too, Fiona, and we all worked to get you into the vault in the first place.” Sasha’s shoulders slumped before she pulled herself upright again. She shared a sympathetic look with Fiona before they both turned to look at Rhys once again.  


Rhys’s hands fell to his sides. He looked between the two, then to Vaughn, before adding, “Did I not mention we’re splitting the profit? Because we are. Vaughn’s just the most reliable to oversee it. And, y’know, he’s also significantly closer to the vault than the rest of us.”  


Loader Bot finally voiced his opinion, in agreement with Rhys, “I find this arrangement agreeable.”  


“Thanks, Loader Bot.” Rhys flashed him a smile before looking back to the other three. “At least someone here believes in me.”  


Vaughn’s eyebrows raised. “Woah. Bro. No one’s attacking you. You should get some rest, you’re a little on edge. Fiona, you too. Even if you were only gone for a day in your time you still need to get some sleep. Or at least eat something.”  


“Well, actually, I’m exhausted, now that you mention it.” Fiona was the first to jump to Vaughn’s suggestion, rather quickly at that.  


Rhys gave in to the fact that everyone else was eager to end the conversation, albeit a bit unwillingly. “I should… probably go back to New Old Haven. I have a ton of paperwork to do. And meetings. And… other stuff. Business stuff. You guys know how it is.”  


“Alright, man. Just… Please get some food and rest at some point, alright?” He knew how this went and that Rhys probably wouldn’t actually get much sleep, but Vaughn figured it was the thought that counted.  


“Uh, yeah, sure buddy. No problem. I’ll be fine.” That was the voice of a man who was absolutely not going to get some rest. Rhys went over and gave Vaughn a one-armed hug and a half-hearted wave to the others before making the walk back to the edge of the camp where his car was parked.  


The drive back to New Old Haven was uneventful, as there was nothing between the two places besides a lot of sand and a few skags or… something. When he arrived at the ATLAS facility, however, he was flooded by people and papers as soon as he walked through the door. Thankfully, Vaughn had been there when he had been gone, but even going to the Hyperion camp for a couple of hours had left tons of work for him when he got back. He took the copious amounts of folders up to his office and simply placed them with what Vaughn couldn’t do while he was gone and fell back into his chair, exhausted.  


He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of eridium he still had on him from when he was in the vault. He figured that he should get a case for it and display it on his desk. Something to spice up the bleak surface. He slid open the top right drawer and grabbed a pill bottle and checked it before getting up to ask Corinne for a coffee. He’d need to remind her to call him in another prescription as well. After he got his coffee, he downed his dosage of medication with it—he knew it wasn’t something he should technically be doing, but he did it anyways.  


He spent a large part of the rest of the day signing the papers that Vaughn had left for him. Once he completed those that were of necessity, he kicked his feet up on the desk and sat back, relishing in the feeling of accomplishment.  


\-----

  


It was another late night at the office, but really, what else was new? When Rhys reaches his house, he goes into his room to unplug his arm before going into the bathroom to shower. He removes his jacket and shirt before looking in the mirror and runs his fingers along scars across his waist and his chest before turning on the shower water and getting undressed fully. He steps into the shower, repeating his usual routine before drying off, throwing on a pair of boxer briefs, and laying down in his bed.  


The night plays out the same as any other. First he dozes off, eventually falling into a deep sleep before his dreams begin. More often than not they’re nightmares, if not just very strange dreams that often leave him feeling slightly off the following day. Most nights, everything he has built would go up in flames, but others he would fall from a cliff or plummet into raging waters, unable to reach the surface. Some nights are worse than others. Some nights he can’t pull himself from his panicked and half-awake state, while others he simply gets up and goes about his morning, but rarely does he ever get a full night’s sleep. Each time it happens, he always hears a voice talking to him. Tonight it’s that soft distant voice that’s hard to listen to. He struggles to hear what the voice is saying to him; it’s too muffled, too distant. With a loud “Wake up,” he sits up, looking around the room. He takes a deep, shaky breath and runs his hands through his hair. Can he just have one night? One decent night where he can actually get some sleep and not wake up in a cold sweat? He feels sick to his stomach, this night seemingly worse than any he can recall. He groans, his stomach churning and heart racing. He takes in short, panicky breaths, unable to calm himself down. He leans back against the headboard, arms crossed on top of his head, trying desperately to catch his breath. He groans, “Fuck, just… Get out of my head…” He gently rocks his head back into the headboard. “I just wanted to sleep…”  


He focuses on taking some deep breaths before laying back down and staring at his ceiling, voice resonating in his head. He definitely isn’t going to get any more sleep with the voice like a goddamned echo in his head, repeating things he isn’t even saying, but he isn’t going to get up either, so he figures he might as well just lay there instead of stressing himself further with an early workload. Rhys isn’t sure what else to do exactly, there’s still a few hours before he has to show up for work.  


Rhys rises for work some odd amount of time later, bored of staring at his ceiling and likely to be more tired if he goes back to sleep. He opts for coffee over sleep yet again, moving slowly through his kitchen after reattaching his arm and getting dressed for the day. He downs the first cup quickly, then grabs another while looking over a few papers on his current financial standings. He sighs and rubs at his temples, a headache beginning to form. He has a feeling something is bound to go wrong today, and debates letting Corinne know he’s staying home sick. He ultimately decides against it, knowing things will be much worse if he isn’t there to handle any problems that decide to rear their ugly heads into his already piss-poor morning. He closes his laptop and shoves the papers back into their file, stuffing that back into his bag. He stands up and places his mug in the sink before pulling his boots on and slinging his bag over his shoulder.  


The walk to the facility is uneventful as per usual, seeing as he only lives in a very short walking distance. He arrives and waves to the receptionist, receiving a smile and a short stack of papers, then takes the elevator up to his office on the top floor. He steps out and makes his way over to the larger part of the floor, containing the office itself. Rhys approaches his desk and sets the newly received papers down, shrugging his bag off and setting it beside the desk. Dropping into his chair with a huff, he turns on his computer, drumming his fingers against the desk while waiting for his login to appear. The small login box disappears almost as quickly as it appeared. Along with… Seemingly everything else. All the lights in Rhys’s office were killed with a loud whirring overhead.  


“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He puts a hand to his forehead, sighing deeply. “Well, let’s see what the hell’s going on now.” He taps into his ECHO comm, “Corinne? Can someone tell me what’s going on?”  


Instead of receiving a message back, he is graced with nothing but loud static. He tries pulling up his contacts only for the image to flicker out and die completely. Luckily it’s daytime so he doesn’t have to fumble his way to the door in the dark, but when he reaches the door, it hits him that the doors lock electronically. The magnetic lock will only release when swiped with his ID, so he isn’t getting out anytime soon. He lets his head fall against the door with a soft bang, unsure what to do next. He makes his way back to his desk and sinks into his chair, kicking his feet up onto the desk. There isn’t a whole lot he can do until the power comes back on, considering he has no clue what’s even happening out there. Is the outage just in the facility or has it shut down the whole town?  


Rhys uses his ECHO eye to assess the situation to some extent. He scans his computer modem, trying to access the power systems. He reboots his computer that’s now running on the small emergency power supply. Everything connected to the main power source in the building seems to be shut down completely, though nothing appears to have shorted out. His monitor flashes to life, accompanied by a loud buzzing. The screen flashes a few times before freezing on a string of binary code. The code then rolls across his screen, the buzzing seeming to get louder. It was coming from no particular source, but rather everywhere at once. It couldn’t have been any of the speakers in his office, as they are all connected to the main power source. He sits back and rubs his eyes, hoping that maybe he’s just hallucinating, but the binary is still flashing across his screen.

01101000 01100001 01101001 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111

The numbers flash down his screen faster than he can catch them, but something is seriously wrong here nonetheless. This obviously isn’t your usual reboot screen. He turns the monitor off, hoping that would kill the wretched noise around him. Much to his dismay, the noise continued. He kicks his legs off his desk and slams his elbows down, clutching his head. The code makes an appearance again, this time from… his eye? He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the numbers to disappear. The buzzing is now a high pitched ringing and is quickly beginning to send him over the edge. Rhys snaps his eyes open and stands up quickly, knocking papers off his desk in the process. He looks around the room, ECHO eye still active and flashing series of ones and zeroes across the room. He catches a figure in the corner of his eye, but it disappears before he can even fully register what he’s seen. He closes his eyes tightly once more and takes a second to try and focus on the code that’s flashing in front of him. It appears to be some of the same sequences repeating over and over. He sifts through thoughts, trying to remember how the hell to decrypt binary before starting to write down the numbers onto a page. It takes him a few tries, bouncing around ones and zeroes to form familiar patterns. Eventually he churns out an understandable phrase, and his stomach drops.

H A I L T O T H E K I N G

His head is spinning, causing him to lean against his desk. Hail to the king. He knew who had said that to him, but he’s still hoping this is just a really bad prank by someone in tech. Likely some low level coder with an all consuming grudge against him. He’ll have to make sure to find out who it is later, once he gets out of his GODDAMNED OFFICE.  


The sound of the shrill buzzing combined with everything else going on all at once comes to be just too much.  


“I’LL HAVE SOMEONE’S HEAD FOR THIS SHITTY PRANK. KNOCK IT. THE FUCK. OFF.”  


The room goes dead silent. The binary stops, and then flickers out of sight altogether. Then there’s the click and buzz of the power coming back on. Systems reset. It’s like nothing had even happened at all.  


Rhys stands still for a moment, bewildered. Everything seems to be working just fine now, though Rhys remains weary. He clicks his monitor back on and stands from his position of leaning against the desk, turning and staring at it for a moment. He then taps into his ECHO comm, getting a hold of Corinne first. “Corinne? Can someone tell me what just happened?”  


There’s some shuffling around on the other end of the line and the sound of papers moving. “W-We don’t know ourselves, sir. I can get a hold of security for you and try to find out, but no one’s sure how or why that happened. The whole town went off the grid, not just our facility.”  


Rhys sighs and sits down at his desk, tapping one of the many pens he has against it. “Oh, great… I’ll get ahold of Haine, you sit tight. We’ll get this figured out.” He hangs up on Corinne before calling head of security, waiting a good few moments before the call is answered. A tired “Hello—” is heard before Rhys cuts the man off. “Hey… So Haine, no one else has any idea what the hell just happened. Could you tell me what the fuck going on down there?”  


Haine sighs at being cut off right as he was about to explain the situation, and decides to show this by being a pain in the ass. “I dunno, sir. Can I?”  


“Goddammit, Haine, you know what I meant.”  


Yep. That’s what he was looking for. He chuckles, then waits a bit to make sure he won’t be interrupted again before responding. “I’m down in the server room right now and we were tryin’ to figure out what the problem was earlier, but all of the systems were fine. They just wouldn’t turn on for some damn reason. You need me to come up there or somethin’ to discuss security measures? The systems are still rebooting, but we were out for a good ten to fifteen minutes.”  


Two could play the petty game. “I dunno, do I?” His voice is very clearly mocking Haine's.  


Haine lets out a chuckle and there’s a brief sound of tapping on a keyboard in the background before it stops. “Yeah, yeah that’s real cute, sir. I’ll be up in a bit.”  
Rhys ends the call and moves away from his desk, grabbing his medication out of the top drawer before pushing the chair back in. He moves around to the front of his desk and leans back onto it, grabbing a mug of coffee which was probably from last night. He checks the contents before shrugging and using it to help down the pills before leaning back to return them to the desk drawer. He scuffs his shoe against the floor, running the events of the past 15 minutes over in his mind.  


Before long, the door hisses open as Haine strides into the room. He stands a good few inches taller than Rhys with black hair, styled into what really looked like an overgrown undercut falling in his face, green eyes, and deep, tawny skin with dark stubble covering his jaw. His security guard uniform consisted of black slacks, a blue shirt, and a black blazer trimmed in gold with gold buttons. Both the blazer and the top two buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned, and his lapel had an ATLAS pin and ID card clipped onto it.  


Haine and Rhys were relatively good friends by this point. Rhys had found Haine while looking for old ATLAS workers when he was first trying to get the company off the ground. Haine was only an intern back then, but he still had access to old information, so it helped. Despite whatever Rhys had proposed to him when he joined the company, Haine insisted on working in security. Rhys figured this was probably due to his old job working as a freelancer around Pandora. He usually looks more put-together than the current circumstances, however. He currently looks like a train wreck. He’s winded, leaning over, breathing heavily, and looks like he just about ran all the way up to the office. (He did.)  


“Damn elevators were still out.” He manages to get the sentence out in-between breaths. “Man, I think I’m gettin’ old or somethin’. Or it could just be that I sit around in a chair a lot nowadays.”  


Rhys huffs out a laugh at the comment, before expressing genuine concern. “Are you alright? That’s… a lot of stairs. You ran up, what, fifteen floors from the server room?”  


“I’m fine, sir. I just need to—” He leans back against the wall beside the door, lightheaded. “Actually, no, I need to sit down.”  


Rhys gestures to one of the two chairs in front of him. “There’s chairs, y’know.”  


Haine slides down the wall, sitting on the floor and debating on just lying down in general. “Yeah, but you see that involves moving. And I—phew—I don’t think I can do that, sir.” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out an old dinged-up cigarette tin and puts a cigarette in his mouth. After making eye contact with Rhys, however, he takes it out and gently places it back in the tin “Yeah, Yeah, I already know what you’re thinkin’.”  


“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” Rhys moves to stand in front of Haine.  


Haine looks up at Rhys with a grin on his face. “I know _I’m_ thinkin’ I oughta throw this at you.” He holds up his cigarette case. The outside of had been marked clearly with the Hyperion “H” logo, which had long since been scratched out with an x, with HAINE E scratched underneath it.  


Rhys laughs and puts his hands up, stepping back a couple steps in mock surrender. “Well, when you’re done dying, I have something I need you to do, which is going to involve you going down to the tech department. But don’t worry, I’ll let you take your breather first, old man.”  


Haine takes a deep breath before pushing himself back into his feet. “I’m only ten years older than you, kid. What is it you need? I know I can’t just sit here in your office all day lookin’ pretty. A damn shame though, because it would be nice to get paid to do that.”  


“I mean, if it were any other day, you could be my personal body guard. But we’re obviously having some major security issues today. If there wasn’t a problem with the hardware itself, then clearly we’re looking at a matrix malfunction. I think it’s probably some dumbass down in tech who thinks it’s funny to shut down a major corporation, rendering us completely useless, for even fifteen minutes. Or they just has one hell of crush and they’re grasping for my attention. Either way, I need you to figure out who it was. When you find them, which I don’t doubt you will, let them know they’re out of a job.”  


“If you think it was someone down in tech, do you think it might be one of those ex-Hyperion workers? In any case, I’ll definitely go down and keep an eye on tech for ya. Just don’t worry too much ‘bout it. I don’t need you dyin’ on me, or anyone for that matter. I’m sure it was just some power failure somewhere.” Haine moves his hand towards Rhys’s head in an attempt to playfully mess up his hair, which Rhys quickly dodges and then scowls at him.  


“Yeah, it could be ex-Hyperion, I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, and I really don’t think it was just a power outage.”  


Haine gives Rhys a look. “Wait, did somethin’ else happen that I’m not aware of?”  


Rhys quickly runs a hand through his hair before turning and walking back over to his desk. “No. But if there wasn’t any apparent hardware issues, then what else could it be?”  


“Yeah… Yeah I guess you’re right. Listen.” He waits a bit for Rhys to turn and look at him, which doesn’t happen and he sighs. “Listen, why don’t you just wrap it up for the day. Go get a drink or somethin’. We have to catch up on all of the things that were stopped when the power went out and do a whole bunch of system checks. I have to go check in on tech and then go do an analysis of the security systems and make sure nothin’s fishy.”  


“The day like… Just started, Haine. I can’t leave now.” Rhys turns to look at Haine, his right hand fidgeting with the buttons on his jacket.  


Haine walks over and grabs his hand, gently pulling it away from his jacket. “Rhys. You’re anxious, you _definitely_ didn’t get much sleep, and you could really use a break. Plus you’re the CEO, no one can stop you. You gotta be takin’ care of yourself as much as you’re takin’ care of this company, alright? Call it a day and go home or something. I’ve got this. I can message you if anything’s up. You said you weren’t gonna die on me anytime soon, and I’m holdin’ you to that.”  


Rhys averts his gaze from Haine down to his feet. He sighs exaggeratedly before complying, “Alright, alright. I’ll go see what my friends are up to today. You better message me the moment anything happens, got it? This company’s more important to me than a night out.”  


Haine puts a hand on his chest in mock offense before laughing and clapping a hand on Rhys’s shoulder. “Could you really expect anything less from me, sir?”  


“Yes, I could. Now get the hell out of my office and go do your job.” He offers him a wide smile and pushes Haine’s hand off his shoulder.  


Haine grins wildly as he turns and heads towards the door. “You’d better get some drinks, Rhys. You’re grumpier than usual today.” He does a one-handed salute back at Rhys before swiping his card and leaving the room.  


Rhys keeps smiling and shakes his head. He turns his computer off again, sighing when the screen goes black. He’d gotten nothing done today and that’s almost bothering him more than the power outage and idiotic prank. He grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder, turning off the lights as he leaves the room. Rhys waves goodbye to Corinne and lets her know he’ll be back in tomorrow morning, or later that day if anything else happens. The elevators are back up so he takes it down to the ground floor before calling Vaughn. Vaughn picks up almost immediately and Rhys greets him first, “Hey, Vaughn?”  


“Who else would it be Rhys?”  


Rhys rolls his eyes. “I’m calling you to come hang out with me, not to sass me.”  


The other end is quiet for a moment before Vaughn replies, “Well I’m not up to much right now, when and where?”  


“Uh…” He pauses and checks his watch. “Now? Hell On Ice?” It was early, Rhys doubts Vaughn will even let him touch a drink, but the quiet bar in the early hours will work as a suitable conversation spot. Better than going home, at least.  


He hears Vaughn sigh from the other end, “Alright, I’ll head out now. Though I’m not sure alcohol is the answer to whatever you have going on bro.”  


Rhys chuckles, “In the long run, no, it’s probably not the answer. But after the day I’ve already had? It’s an immediate solution. Plus—“  


Vaughn cuts him off before he can finish. “Haine told you to go drinking, didn’t he? Rhys, it’s not even ten in the morning.” His disappointment is apparent in his voice.  


“Alright then, Bloody Marys it is. Just get over here so we can talk, you’ll understand then.” He clicks out of the call and heads to the bar  


Vaughn arrives later on, about an hour or so after Rhys, who had already started with a Bloody Mary and was absentmindedly tracing his left hand over words that were carved into the wooden counter. He approaches the bar where Rhys is sitting, the bar itself was completely empty aside from the one man maintaining the bar, currently wiping down tables. He gets onto the stool beside his friend and gives him a light punch on the arm, making Rhys jump slightly.  


Vaughn retreats almost immediately, voice soft. “That bad of a day, huh? What happened to put you so on edge, man?”  


“Vaughn, I haven’t slept in two days and my entire facility shut down. Not to mention the never-ending stream of nightmares that, by the way, still haven’t gone away. So yeah, that bad of a day. But that’s not even the worst of it!” Rhys throws his hands up, and they fall back down onto the bar.  


Vaughn glances around the place, making sure no one is listening. No one is there though, as it’s around 11 am. “Bro, what _happened_?” He sees the bag still slung around his friend, “You didn’t even bother to take your things home?”  


“Nope, came straight here. It’s not like anyone’s going to take my things anyways. I own this place, man. Didn’t really want to go home, and I needed some place where I wasn’t going to feel suffocated.” Rhys gestures to the bar around him. “So here we are. We’ll drink later, however. Or… I will, at least. But anyways, today… Right.”  


Rhys recites the past few days to his friend, from the nightmares to the blackout earlier that morning. The conversation goes back and forth for a couple hours before Vaughn decides it’s best they eat something. Rhys is clearly lacking proper nutrition, practically living off of coffee for the past few days. Rhys mostly just shrugs it off, insisting he’s perfectly fine. He eats anyways, if only to get Vaughn off of his back about it. Plus, he figures, if he’s going to drink, he might as well have something in his stomach so he doesn’t die of alcohol poisoning. Not that Vaughn would let him get anywhere near that point.  


“—gotta take care of yourself y’know?” Vaughn’s voice cuts in and snaps Rhys out of his thoughts.  


“I, uh, yeah. Right. I know. I’m eating now, aren’t I?” Rhys somehow manages.  


Vaughn raises an eyebrow. “You were staring pretty intently at your hand, anything new? I wasn’t sure you were listening for a second there.”  


Rhys waves him off, “Yeah, yeah, I’m listening. Like I said, it’s just been a really rough week so far. But I’m alright, Haine will get the mess sorted out with tech so I don’t need to worry about that. And I’ll actually be able to get some sleep tonight… Hopefully.”  


Vaughn gives him a look of disappointment. “Rhys, you know you shouldn’t be taking Haine’s advice on like… anything. He just told you to go drinking and you actually listened to him.”  


“Okay buuut… It seemed like decent advice and we’re already here, so why not? One drink isn't gonna kill me.” He shrugs.  


Vaughn sighs for what seems the thousandth time that day and nudges Rhys. “So what’s up with taking Haine’s advice anyways, huh? Usually you’d just ignore anyone who told you to go home and stay at work anyways.”  


Rhys tugs a bit at his collar, “There wasn’t exactly much to do. The day’s pretty much gonna be spent cleaning the systems of any malware and then rebooting everything a thousand times to make sure it’s all working properly again.”  


“Yeah, like that’s the only reason, Rhys. Come on, you’re a nerd you can do that stuff. Besides, wouldn’t you need to reboot all of the systems in your office? You’re letting Haine reboot your computer for you, bro. Better hope you don’t have anything on it you don’t want him to see.” He smirks.  


The CEO puts his face in his hands, “Augh… You’re right.” He quickly snaps up to look at Vaughn. “I don’t have anything like that on it though! That’s not what I meant! I meant like… You’re right about me needing to… Go do that myself?”  


“Have fun wiping those files before Haine finds them.”  


Rhys is beet red at this point. “There’s no files!”  


Vaughn laughs, “Just get going, Rhys. At least I got you to eat and not get shitfaced. My own personal accomplishment for the day.”  


“Not blasted, yet,” Rhys mutters. He clears his throat, voice at a normal volume again. “But uh… Yeah. I’ll talk to you later then…?”  


Vaughn nods. “Yeah, bro, call me when you get off work or something.”  


He gives him a nod back and stands up. “Will do. See ya.” Rhys gives him a small wave before turning and exiting the bar.  


Rhys makes his way back to ATLAS, entering the building and making his way back up to his office. Once inside, he goes about checking and rebooting his computer. Soon enough, Haine walks in. Haine doesn’t notice him at first, his nose practically buried in a stack of technical papers. He only notices someone else is in the room when he hears Rhys clear his throat and he stops to look up at him.  


Haine looks up, taken aback. “Woah, hey, what happened to getting drinks? I was just about to reboot your computer for you. Is something wrong?”  


Rhys smiles. “Oh, no. No, nothing’s wrong. Just figured I should come back here and do this myself. Had a chat with a friend and I’m feeling better now.” He continues clacking away on his keyboard.  


Haine puts his hands up in front of him. “Hey. Listen, I get it. Something you didn’t want me to see. I get that.”  


Rhys stops typing, staring at Haine blankly for a moment. His eyes widen when he registers what was said, “What? No! No, no, no, no, no. I’m not hiding anything. What would I have to hide anyways?”  


“Uh… Porn? We are talking about porn, right? You would hide that? Yeah, I’m talkin’ ‘bout porn, Rhys.”  


Rhys looks at him, bewildered. “Why the hell would I keep _porn_ on my _work_ computer?”  


Haine coughs nervously into his elbow, avoiding eye contact with Rhys for a good couple seconds. “Anyways, I, uh, have some reports from goin’ through the systems and… You might want to see this one.” He tosses a file onto Rhys’s desk. “Right before the blackout, someone accessed the system. We managed to trace the MAC address and it came from your system.”  


Rhys picks up the file and shuffles through it, “Well that just…” He pinches the bridge of his nose and throws the file back onto his desk, maybe a little too rough, “Why would I crack my own systems?”  


“You tell me, buddy. Me and the guy who found this were confused as hell. I mean, no one else would be in your office.”  


Rhys throws his hands up in the air, clearly aggravated. “I wouldn’t! That’s the whole point! I sure as hell don’t want to see this company go down the drain so why would I fuck up my own shit? I—”  


He jumps back from the outburst. “Rhys. RHYS. Calm down a bit. It was a blackout, okay? We found the source and yeah, something’s goin’ on. But nothin’ bad happened. Maybe…” Haine takes a deep sigh. “Maybe you should get your ECHO eye and arm checked out just in case? I don’t know. And you haven’t really been gettin’ much sleep either. Maybe you just dozed off an’— Shit I don’t know. I don’t know.”  


“I built my arm and eye myself, Haine.” Rhys stands up, placing both hands down on the desk in front of him, an almost furious look on his face. He looks the taller man straight in the eye. “I would not do something like this, okay? And something like what happened does not happen on accident.”  


Haine starts taking steps back and away from Rhys, his hands held up. “Yeah… Yeah, alright, sir. I understand. I’m uh. I’ll just go then? You have a good rest of your day.” With that, Haine turns and quickly leaves the office.  


Rhys slams his hands down onto his desk. “SON OF A—” He inhales sharply before running a hand through his hair, sighing. “What is going on…?” He collapses back into his chair and stares out the window at the town below him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's notes from when we were writing:
> 
> The Chapter title until we came up with the actual title was "Comfort Is A Dick Up The Ass"  
> (I don't get no sleep cause of yall) - At Rhys's nightmare  
> "die completely" - (just like me)  
> "Haine" (aka sexy security)  
> (HAINE CAN FUCKING RAW ME)  
> [Rhys voice] Time to get shitfaced and pass the fuck out on my kitchen floor.  
> Look what you've done, Rhys, now you've gotta raw yourself  
> Time to get white-girl wasted  
> Lord help us all when Rhys ends up on the floor. New Cryptid: Rhys laying on the floor of the bar, martini in hand, crying over his hot security head  
> [Haine voice] Getting blasted is more fun when you're getting blasted with friends.
> 
> Serious author's notes:  
> Haine is based off of Polynesian descent.  
> swxssxrmy totally has a gay crush on Haine and has drawn art of Haine and Rhys being gay

**Author's Note:**

> Some author's notes from when we were writing this story:
> 
> "God bless Loader Bot"  
> "My favourite character is the assistant"  
> "Welcome to Dissociation Station. My name is Rhys and I'll be your conductor."  
> The Prologue is still titled "Prolapse" on the doc  
> The title of the doc itself is "I Would Let Rhys Suck My Dick"


End file.
